week in training | 3.1 – 3.7

Ladies and gentlemen, I am now the proud owner of a bike trainer with a power meter! This will really improve my cycling with regards to consistency and metrics. Power is the most reliable way to measure biking prowess since it can translate from indoors to outdoors, bike to bike. Granted, I don’t have a power meter yet for riding outside, so I can really only use my numbers on the trainer, but since I do the vast majority of my training inside it will prove itself helpful!

Monday, 3.1: 6.87 miles, 10:11 pace + 22.49 miles, 15.9 mph cycling (1:25:00)

Steamy morning run at 71 degrees, but the easy pace felt ok despite me being completely drenched by the end. I had to wrestle with my heart rate strap for a good 20 minutes after since my watch would not sense it at all. I got it to work eventually, but it glitched the first 20 minutes of my ride so was practically useless anyway. Not a bad spin by any stretch, really, once I got going.

Tuesday, 3.2: 26.57 miles, 15.9 mph cycling (1:40:00) + 2,000 yard swim (39:51)

Kicked up my scheduled zone 2 ride with 2 x 20 minutes in zone 3, which quickly kicked up to zone 4 in the second set. My Wahoo completely crapped out so I played with my optical HRM and managed to get it to work pretty well! I flipped the watch face so the sensor hit the inside of my wrist and moved the band down maybe two and a half inches below the bone. It had a couple finicky moments but otherwise kept up really well.

Swim felt pretty relaxed overall. I swam a set of 850 and 150, then 6 x 25 kick (worst), 4 x 50 pull, 4 x 100, 8 x 25 sprints, and a 100 cooldown for a 2:00/100 yard average.

Wednesday, 3.3: 7.4 miles, 9:28 pace + 60 minute strength

Woke up to 20+ mph winds and 73 degrees and immediately did not want to try running outside. I know I’ll have to acclimate eventually, but the wind threw me more than anything. I really dislike hot wind (and cold wind, wind just sucks honestly) so I opted inside for some intervals. Turns out, our gym AC is either busted or set at 75 permanently, so either way I would suffer in my workout. Stuck with the mill and had a good session, but sweated ridiculously and definitely cramped up afterwards. 3 x 3 minutes around 7:42 pace, 4 x 2 minutes from 7:30-7:10ish, 5 x 1 minutes from 7:05-6:55. I walked a lot of the recoveries to try to mitigate the impacts of the heat, which helped to an extent.

Strength:

• 5 x 5 heavy squat
• 3 x 10 bent over row
• 3 x 8 weighted stepups per side
• 2 x 8/2×5 single leg deadlift
• 3 x 12 chest press
• 3 x 12 stability ball hamstring curl
• 3 x 10 overhead press
• 3 x 8 panda bears
• 3 x 10 banded step outs with press
• 3 x 20 banded bridge glute presses
• 3 x 20 mountain climbers/5 pushups

Thursday, 3.4: 29.44 miles, 20.8 mph cycling (1:25:00) + 2,000 yard swim (40:47)

I have no idea if the speed is anywhere near accurate in the app I used – I’m doubting it is – but the more important metric was a power reading! I hooked up the Wahoo app to our new Saris H3 trainer and I finally have some solid data to work with on the saddle. I kept my effort zone 2, got my heartrate easily where I’d expect it should be, and averaged 119 watts for the ride. Most of it ranged between 125-130 after I got a feel of my bike gears. I was so excited about this ride I bugged J while he was half awake with my stats.

Swim after work was a simple 600 yard, 800 yard, and 300 yard interval set with 3 x 100 to finish. Averaged 2:02/100 yards.

Friday, 3.5: 33.79 miles, 22.5 mph cycling (1:30:10) + 6.01 miles, 9:59 pace

New power numbers AND a new watch with which to record them! My bike VO2 Max after this workout settled at 46, which is identical to my running VO2. I performed a 3-2-1 pyramid workout and averaged 129W over the workout. It’s going to take some getting used to incorporating power numbers in my workout log, since I don’t think they’re quite established after just two cycling sessions with the new trainer.

Saturday, 3.6: 12.58 miles, 9:32 pace + 21.46 miles, 21.5 mph cycling (1:00:00)

Decided to ramp up my long run with 3 x 1 mile repeats at a hard effort. I hit 7:37, 7:31, and 7:36 for the splits. This felt so hard and I wanted to die pretty much the whole time. Followed with a relaxed ride at 123W before the day’s festivities commenced!

Sunday, 3.7: 35.34 miles, 23.6 mph cycling (1:30:00) + 45 min strength + 3.6 miles, 9:44 pace

I highly doubt the speed is anywhere near correct, but since I have power numbers now that doesn’t much matter. Average 136W for 3 x :30 zone 5/10 minute zone 4. I topped out at 256W and it was freaking hard. I don’t like this workout much but I always feel a sadistic sense of satisfaction when I finish.

I couldn’t pass up the beautiful midmorning weather, and despite the wind I had a wonderful run and even stopped a bit early to walk back, unrecorded, to my apartment.

Strength:

• 3 x 8 single leg deadlift
• 3 x 16 TRX row
• 3 x 15 boat hold triceps extensions
• 3 x 10 leg extension hops
• 3 x 12 thruster
• 3 x 20 Russian twist, weighted
• 3 x 10 pushup shoulder taps
• 3 x 20 bodyweight Supermans
• 3 x :30 prone hold
• 3 x 30 jackknife
• 35 bodyweight squat finisher

Total running mileage: 36.5

Total cycling mileage: 169.1

Total swimming yardage: 4,000